Have I mentioned how much I love writing this blog? Have I mentioned that the reason is because I have contacted several artists for permission to use their images and all of them have been not only happy to give their permission, but some have been down right supportive. Without this blog, there would be no reason whatever for me to randomly approach artists and chat. In fact that might even come across as stalkerish without a good reason like a blog. We wouldn't want them to think that...even if I was their *creepy music* number one fan.

When I first contacted today's artist, lachme, I asked if she was still doing LEGO mosaics because the dates on some of her pieces were from two or three years ago. She replied that she is doing mosaics but that she has been busy earning her Bachelors degree and is job hunting. She plans to do more LEGO and is considering doing Nathan Fillion (Captain Malcolm Reynolds) next in keeping with her 'Captain' theme.

I asked her what her inspirations are or how she comes to be inspired and she said:

i don't really have a lot to say about my work because many of my thoughts about it cannot be expressed in words, but i welcome questions. for me, it's all about tactility and rightness; i can't tell you why i make the choices i make in my work, i just choose what feels "right." i take a great deal of pleasure in seeing a piece come together, for the reality under my hands to grow to match the image i carry in my mind, but i also take pleasure in simply putting all of my bricks in order-- it's an asd thing.

Really, who doesn't like their ducks in a row?

I googled "asd" and I just want to say I hate you Urban Dictionary. I think lachme means she likes putting things in order. (UPDATE: "asd" stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder, a much better thing than what Urban Dictionary suggested and for which Wikipedia has an explanation here) What really made me smile was this:

...unlike most artists, i encourage people to touch my pieces, as that's part of the fun!

Recently I was at a gallery in the city where a series of sculptures were featured in a huge room built for the showing. They were all primary colours and poised coming out of walls, and running along the tile. Others were bursting from the floor in random and whimsical shapes of familiar things or tangible representations of intangible things like wind. When something is designed to be whimsical, we want to touch it especially when it represents something like wind. Guards were posted to prevent this however. In honesty this may have been the decision of the gallery not the artist, due to liability issues. I understand that. Also, there are some people who do not respect anything and so yes, art should be protected. But when we're allowed to actually touch art, it transforms the piece exponentially. For me, it does.

Her Captain Jack Sparrow from yesterday's preview came to her as she pondered who from our time, would end up being myths, heroes or legends to people 500 years in the future. She came up with Harry Potter and Captain Jack as two possibilities.

She explains:

i spent a week looking at literally hundreds of images in order to find the pic i wanted to work from; i found this as a screencap from potc- world's end, and cropped it to suit my purposes-

I don't know about you I think she captures him perfectly. Here is part of her process;

i graphed an outline sketch of the image on a 4'x4' sheet of pressed board. initially, i attach the lego blocks to the board with rubber cement. however, as the work progresses it become heavier, so the glue no longer provides the necessary support. at that point, i drill holes in the board and use nails as pegs to support the weight.

i always start with the eyes-- the eyes are where you capture the subject...or fail to capture him.

I love reading about the process of how an artist comes to produce their pieces. I wonder if there has been a piece she has wanted to do but has been unable to capture the eyes to her satisfaction?

UPDATE: I asked lachme: Has there ever been a piece you have wanted to do but failed to capture because you couldn't get the eyes to your satisfaction?

no, not so far. but it took me over a week to get einstein's eyes right-- the darned glasses gave me fits! same with the colbert portrait. i built and then took apart and re-built colbert's eyes three times before i was satisfied with my results. the problem with that one was i was trying to only use the colors red, white, & blue for colbert, but his glasses are frameless. oy gevalt, what a headache. i finally broke down and used yellow, only for the glasses, to achieve a satisfactory result.

So totally awesome! Now you're wondering where the Colbert picture is...hang on I'll get it...

Colbert of the frameless specs. I think the yellow works without distracting from the red white and blue theme at all

I return you now to the Jack Sparrow mosaic...

She said the mustache gave her a lot of trouble. I think it gives everyone a lot of trouble.

I love this picture because of the tub of LEGO sitting in front!

I find Lachme's ability to convert LEGO, a rigidly boxy medium, into the spirit and essence of a smirk or personality, something completely abstract and fluid to be extraordinary. When you look at these pieces you are not immediately struck, or distracted, by what was used to make them. Your eyes are drawn to the smile, or crows feet around the eyes or expression, then you gradually take in the bold colours and stylized way they are combined. I look forward to the next chapters in Lachme's LEGO art expressions. Good luck job hunting!

I'll be featuring the work of Washington artist and blogger, lachme, whose blog inimitable iterations covers all sort of interesting territory. Tomorrow I'll be showing you the amazing mosaics she creates with LEGO.

She says she "always start with the eyes-- the eyes are where you capture the subject...or fail to capture him."

Anyone who works with LEGO is a kindred spirit in my book and if that's not all, she says she wants people to touch her art pieces "because that's part of the fun!". Having just been to a gallery where several tantalizing sculptures that virtually seduced you to touch them, and which were guarded to prevent us touching them, I appreciate that a lot.

Here's something I felt like doing. Let's have coffee and talk about stuff. Or talk to someone real about stuff. Or add your own subject in the comments and we'll talk about that. Sort of like an open post with fake refreshments. Wow, that sounds really lame.

Coffee for us...

...hot chocolate for Angie and you other anomalous humans who don't like coffee...

...Herbal tea for those avoiding caffeine...

...Iced capp with chocolate milk for
B-Geo...

This is Nutella for three day old coffee,
once the Ayatollah lands his
sneaky cloud-shaped UFO

Ann, what's your poison? Followers? If I missed anyone, let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the list for the next coffee chat if you want to be added.

Considering I work in the coffee business, I don't much care what type of coffee I'm drinking or whose. Frankly, I think MacDonald's is putting out some really good coffee these days. If I'm not making my own at home, and I'm not at work, I get my coffee there. However I don't see why I should pay for something I can easily make for myself and without having to leave the house in the dead of winter.

I often check out the line up of guests waiting to be served and wonder why they put themselves in a position where they wait 10-20 minutes for something they could make at home. Considering drive and park time that's a whole half hour of extra relaxing before work.

I'm lucky, I get my coffee free when I'm working and I never have to line up. But that's the only way I'd submit to getting my coffee from a shop as opposed to making it myself.

It's true the coffee does not taste one bit like the addictive elixir of life we brew in the restaurants. And no, it is an urban myth that we add some kind of drug to the coffee to keep patrons addicted. So, it doesn't taste exactly the same, it's still coffee and that's enough for me.

Did you know that the roasting process alters the caffeine content and contrary to what we might want to assume, the dark roasts actually contain the least amount of caffeine. A slower brew with a medium roast will produce a beverage with more caffeine than an espresso. So by all means order your blackest blend but make them red eyes and add a few shots of espresso to get your caffeine. That might even boost the caffeine up to lighter roast coffee levels. You know, the blends you think weenies drink.

Yesterday was national bubble wrap day.
I'll just leave that with you.

This house I live in came with a garage. It has an automatic door opener too. Even when I was a kid, I've never lived in a house that had a garage that was used for a car before. My garage is detached, situated on the back of the property and accessible only by lane way and, in my mind, that canceled out me ever using it. So I have faithfully parked my car in front of the house, on the street, and every winter, I get up at 4:30 am, get ready for work, brush off the snow and scrape the windows while the car warms up. The other day I had to remove the crap in the trunk to make room for an order I was picking up in the city so I used the garage to empty the trunk and put everything back in when I returned home and I left the car in the garage over night. Holy hell on wheels! When I got in the car the next morning, no frost anywhere. No snow to brush. I didn't even have to warm up the car. I got to work a full ten minutes earlier than usual. I've been parking the car there ever since. What was I thinking?!

One of the problems was that there were about five different keys for the various doors on this property. Front door had two different keys (reg lock and dead bolt) back door had two others (same configuration) and then there was the garage door. So trying to figure out which key went where in the dark at five in the morning was more than I wanted to deal with. So two years ago I hired a delightful elderly locksmith to change all the locks and give me a set of keys in which each of those keys opens every lock. I should have been using the garage from that point on but it was summer and I forgot about it by winter. Having never had a garage before it didn't occur to me.

The other day, I jokingly asked the Lad: "Did you know that a garage is like a little house for a car??!!!". He patted my head proudly.

Only you can help make Bridezillas extinct

Can we please stop raising our girls to think their wedding is the most important day of their lives because they get to be a princess? A wedding represents a beginning, not the landmark day in a relationship. The critical day in a relationship was when two people came to believe and accept that their relationship was worth committing to for as long as they both live. The wedding is just a party to celebrate the legal part of that with friends and family. Here's an interesting article about the wedding obsession.

I'm not against getting the dress you want and can afford. I'm not against making choices based on personal preferences for the reception. I am against going deeply in debt or putting your family in debt and I'm against creating a woman who believes she's entitled to behave any way she wants because it's HER day. Grow up.

Bridezillas will do anything it takes to make their special day perfect. Even if this means destroying friendships, the marriage in question, or even whole cities.

Bridezillas seam like normal human girls, until the wedding planning begins. By that point it's too late.

Anyone woman you know could be a bridezilla. Your sister, your best friend, even that girlfriend you've been considering popping the question to.

A worldwide decline of diamond prices

in the 1930's lead to the

famous marketing campaign,

"A diamond is forever."

Also before you put your groom-to-be in debt for that diamond we are all supposed to believe should be worth three months salary, consider NOT getting a diamond. Really. Until recently, De Beers was the company who owned the diamonds and De Beers is the company responsible for that laughable marketing ploy. Of course they wanted you to spend three months salary for their product. What they didn't want you to know is carat for carat there are far more valuable gemstones available for far less money. If you're really going for value, I'd be looking in a different direction than the classic diamond. The price of diamonds was artificially inflated because the company who owned 95% of them strictly controlled the amount of diamonds on the market. We all know that that keeps the demand high and the supply 'low'.

Things aren't so easy for De Beers now because the availability of synthetic diamonds of practically any size led, in 2007, to the Gemological Institute of America’s acceptance and grading of lab-grown diamonds. And now these large synthetic diamonds are everywhere, selling at a fraction of the cost of natural diamonds in countless retail jewelers.

Seriously, you need software and computers to distinguish between the real and the lab created diamonds out there now. Why waste your money when any trailer trash skank can own a 'diamond' that is bigger than yours and undetectable, by eye, as a man made version of your little quarter carat dealio. Diamonds are becoming so devalued that De Beers is getting into the IT business. Check out this article.

OK, everyone has been saying it and now I will say it. Jennifer Lawrence is adorable. She's is full of personality and also a lovable, geek goddess. She won Best Female Actor in a Leading Role (?) at the SAG awards. She looked fabulous, see:

Jennifer Lawrence at the SAG awards where
apparently the only newsworthy thing relating to her appearance
was maybe a wardrobe malfunction.

The only hits I get when I google "Jennifer Lawrence SAG awards" is regarding her possibly ripped dress! WTF? Maybe her dress ripped but I think looking at this photo that a separation of some sort was designed into the dress for some reason...maybe it has a built in break away train so she can wear it shorter at a later time. She seems like the kind of person who would go for something practical like that.

She was subjected to a ridiculous thing called a "mani cam" on the red carpet where some talking E! fashion bubble head wanted her to put her hand in a special camera'ed compartment for the purpose of analyzing and featuring the manicures of the stars. For the love of mankind, why would anyone care about this? Why?? Do we need close ups of that shit? So anyway she was game and she did this:

She does NOT have chubby fingers, you jackasses!
You entertainment people need to stop contributing to
misguided perception of beauty issues!!! She is perfect, leave her alone.

She managed to make the idiotic mani cam fun. Team: Jennifer forever. Unless she changes. Right now her sense of wonder and genuine sincerity are completely captivating. Oh, and did you hear? She's a pretty good actress, too.

I wasn't going to mention this but I'm having one of those days where I drop everything. I have to grab several bags from the car and the hand I arrange them all in is on the same side of my body as the pocket with my keys. So as I'm walking up to the door I switch hands, grab my keys, lock the car, go to unlock the door and I drop my keys. Twice. I swear there are some days when I feel like I might as well just drop things straight onto the floor as soon as I pick them up because they're going to end up there anyway. Just toss the soap into the bathtub right off the bat because that's where it's going to end up two or three times.

My hands just don't work like they used to and that, more than anything, makes me feel like I'm getting old. I have the strength, I just don't have the moisture in my fingertips to get a grip on anything!

I finally got in to see the dentist and got my temporary crown. I only need one, not two, at the moment, so that's half the trauma and half the cost I was expecting. I will have to get another eventually. Anyway the temporary crown is sitting too high and it's pissing me off. At least it's better than the partial molar I've been living with for the last two months. Also? I'm one of those high maintenance patients who needs extra freezing because I can feel everything. He didn't believe me last time so he raked his dentist's hook of torture (you know the one they like sticking in your cavities and then wrenching out again and then saying; Did that hurt?) across my gum wherein I jumped six inches off the chair and glared at him. "I'll just give you a little more freezing, then" he said. All good today. No pain.

Calvin Nicholls is a Canadian artist who sculpts with paper, scissors, glue and scalpels. He works out of his studio north of Toronto, Ontario. His work is beautiful, ethereal and breathtaking. He will even show you exactly how to reproduce the type of art he creates, how awesome is that? His website can be found here.

Nicholls studied Graphic Design in the late 70′s at Sheridan Collage. I went to Sheridan Collage too! He says he experimented with paper sculpture and was able to combine his love for this sculpture and wildlife. He completed a bird of prey with outstretched wings for Noranda Recycled Papers when he realized how well suited the layering of feathers was to the art of paper sculpture.

He completed 15 sculptures for an a children's book, The World Before This One, written by Rafe Martin which has gained high praise by revered Kirkus and Star Review book reviewers in the United States.

My interest in monochromatics continues. I want people to be drawn in to explore the work and to consider the medium. Although I have completed pieces in full colour I continue to experiment with the interaction of light and shadow on the surface of plain paper in off white or in multi-step grayscale equivalents as in my most recent piece titled Moonridge.

I look forward to the adventures that lie ahead and enjoy the times I have had working from my home studio with my wife watching all three of our children as they develop their own styles and skills in the world of art.